Based on the premise that the true Home of the Groove, at least on the North American landmass, is the irreplaceable musical and cultural nexus, New Orleans, Louisiana and environs, this audioblog features rare, hard to find, often forgotten, vintage New Orleans-related R&B and funk records with commentary. Some general knowledge of N.O. music is helpful here, but not required to get your groove on.

About Me

I currently host a weekly show, "Funkify Your Life", on KRVS 88.7 FM in Lafayette which includes music covered on HOTG and more. You can listen-in live Thursdays at 1:00 PM or to the rebroadcast Fridays at 9:00 PM, or stream shows on demand and see playlists at the station website under the Programs tab. I am a former resident of Memphis, TN, where I did a weekly radio show called "New Orleans: Under the Influence" from 1988 to 2004 on WEVL 89.9 FM. I've been collecting and researching this kind of music (& others) even longer.

HOTG Heads Up

Individual audio files are accessible for a limited time after posting. Link to access audio will be on the song title. No link? Audio's outa here*.

When you hit a song link, a player streams it in a separate window. For other listening options, right click on the player when it comes up.

Note: Audio files on this blog are not high resolution (usually 128k) and are posted for reference purposes only. Please do not link directly to them. Use caution if booty shaking while operating vehicles or heavy machinery. Whenever possible, please buy music by these artists!!!
*HEADS UP: If the audio is no longer available here, hit the affiliated site, HOTG Internet Radio, a fully licensed webcast streaming a huge playlist of songs from the HOTG Archives. So go on, get down with the get down.
EMAIL: hotgblog (AT) gmail (DOT) com
ARTISTS & LABELS (or reps thereof): Want to submit your New Orleans/Louisiana grooves for review or posting consideration,
or want an audio post discontinued? Email me.
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section is now moderated. Legitimate comments will be posted after review. Thanks for your understanding...and patience. NOTE:
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QUOTES OF NOTE:
"New Orleans is of such key importance to American music because historical factors combined to make it the strongest center of
African musical practice in the United States, and, cliches aside, that practice really did travel up the Mississippi and did
spread overland." - Ned Sublette, from Cuba And Its Music

"I heard a group called Huey Smith & the Clowns, out of New Orleans. Now this is where funk was really created! That's where funk originated....
I couldn't understand how to do it, so this drummer from Huey Smith's band [Hungry Williams] showed me how to play [it]." - Clayton Fillyau,
drummer for Etta James and James Brown, on the origins of the 'James Brown Beat', in The Great Drummers Of R&B, Funk & Soul, interviewed by Jim Payne.

"A lot of those New Orleans drummers would come through, and I got a lot of stuff from those guys....Tenoo [Coleman] was...as funky as any of them.....
I learned some of that funk by listening to Tenoo." - John 'Jabo'Starks, drummer for Bobby Bland and James Brown, to Jim Payne as above.

"At the risk of sounding egotistical, a lot of the broken up stuff that these guys are playing now stems from the stuff that I had started doing." -
Earl Palmer, on his early days drumming with Dave Bartholomew's band, to Jim Payne, as above.

"With funk, it's almost more what you don't play than what you do play. I like those long silences between riffs,
I like the empty spaces. Those empty spaces, when you stop and let the groove wash all over you, make the
difference between fake funk and real funk." -Art Neville in The Brothers Neville

"Thank the good Lord for the funk musicians." -Jon Cleary ("Pin Your Spin")

"Without New Orleans, there would be no America." -Keith Frazier, Rebirth Brass Band, 2005.

"....don't be fooled. This city is deeply wounded. I'd say it's like an amputee
with phantom memory." -David Freedman, WWOZ, post-Katrina.

"If there was no New Orleans, America would just be a bunch of free people dying of boredom."
-Judy Deck, in an e-mail to Chris Rose at the Times-Picayune

"I'm not finished!" - Wardell Quezergue's final comment of the night after accepting the 2008 Best of the Beat
Lifetime Achievement In Music Award from Offbeat

"I discovered New Orleans along the way, and that made a big difference - It loosened me up." - Richie Hayward, the late drummer for Little Feat.

December 24, 2010

Cool Yule Stocking Stuffers

For the very early grades. . .my classmates included Allen Toussaint and James Booker, guys who would influence my life in ways I couldn't begin to imagine. They would both grow up to be two of the baddest piano playing dudes. . . James was a genius. We're both Saggitarians, and we were both altar boys. . . .Booker taught me so much stuff. Anything he heard, he could duplicate, from Frederick Chopin to Tuts Washington, with all stops in between. - Art Neville in The Brothers Neville

A couple of holiday treats for you, featuring two players whose connections go way back.

In the alternate universe that is HOTG, this James Booker B-side is most definitely a Christmas tune. First there's the title; then the way chilly tone he generated on the Hammond organ. As I am fairly non-traditional about the seasonal music, that's plenty good enough for me.

This cut and "Cross My Heart", a take on the Johnny Ace ballad, were on Booker's final of fourinstrumental organ singlesunder his own name for Don Robey's Peacock label. While the record faded away as quickly as its two predecessors, the keyboardist's first of the series contained "Gonzo", which was was a substantial national hit, the only one he ever had.

The instruments used on "Big Nick" pretty much mirrored "Gonzo", including the flute - an unusual R&B instrument in those days. I’ve never run across any documentation on who the other players were on any of Booker’s Peacock sessions, which were done in Houston, although I’ve read that a fellow New Orleans pianist, Ed Frank, produced and arranged them. Since the first time I heard it, the hip, lightly syncopated bossa nova beat and jazzy feel on this tune never fail to lock me in.

Booker was overflowing with influences. As Art Neville noted, from an early age, pretty much everything the prodigy ever heard could come out of his fingers at any given moment. Of course, his main mode of expression was the piano; and his overwhelming, florid virtuosity on it certainly eclipsed his far more tame organ technique. Still, he had an expressive, playful touch on the electronic keyboard and influenced other local players, including his old school buddy, Art.

Both Neville and Booker were born on December 17 - Art in 1937 and James in 1939. Although James did not record very much on the organ under his own name - the Peacocks and one earlier B-side for Ace asLittle Booker- his playing was featured on several singles that drummer Earl Forest recorded for Duke around the same period, and on a later LP by theLloyd Price band. He also played the instrument a lot over the years as a side man. Of course, Art became THE organist in New Orleans popular music as a part of the distinctive, groundbreaking funk sound of the Meters.

Another song from the HOTG holiday songbook. It even mentions Santa Claus. What more do ya want?

The Meters first album for Warner Brothers’ Reprise label,Cabbage Alley, produced by Toussaint and his Sansu Enterprises partner, Marshall Sehorn (he made the deal), marked their move into material with substantial lyrics, stepping up their game from the minimalist, mainly instrumental funk they recorded for Josie the prior three years. This not often heard message song by guitarist Leo Nocentelli also features Art on lead vocal, piano, and, of course, Hammond organ, George Porter, Jr, on bass, and Zig Modeliste on drums. Although the album cover and later (28 years!) CD re-issue on Sundazed don’t mention the recording venue, I believe the sessions were done at Jazz City Studio in New Orleans, which engineer Skip Godwin took over for a time after Cosimo Matassa got shut out by the IRS and bankruptcy. That’s where Toussaint’s first LP for Warner Bros,Life, Love and Faith, was done with the Meters backing him up. Both albums came out in 1972.

Warner Brothers was a pop label at the time and years away from becoming a corporate giant. Back in those days, they were willing and able to take a chance on some fairly exotic musicians from New Orleans and had wisely signed Toussaint to a songwriting and record-making deal; and the Meters were packaged in with that. As Leo recalled, the Meters and Tower of Power were the first funky R&B bands the label had. Quite frankly, I don’t think the company ever figured out how to effectively market the Meters, although they hung in for four albums over six years. The commercial rewards were slim; but just having the band on the roster increased the label's hip cred - back when that meant something. Not that it did the band much of any good financially.

A few weeks ago,George Porter, Jr.and his band, Runnin’ Pardners, played the Blue Moon Saloon here, as I mentioned in my sidebar mini-review. These days, on his own gigs, he’s doing lots of these songs from the Meters back catalog that the other members of that amazing band just flat won’t play at their few reunion gigs. As George rightly figures, there is some great material back up in there that rarely ever gets covered - and the songs need to be heard. So, he’s covering them himself! I’m sure there are plenty of album cuts and B-sides that the Meters never played after they were recorded. More’s the pity. Thank you George for breaking them back out and performing them live for new and old audiences alike.

As you groove to this one over the holidays, I hope you’ll take the suggestion to consider all the neglected, under-represented, forgotten people on this planet and be moved to find out about more about them and what they need to survive and thrive. We all can afford to break out of our own instant gratification routines sometime and do something good for somebody else.

4 Comments:

"Big Nick" is a funky cop of "Les Cornichons" by Nino Ferrer and other French yeye singers -- check out the Patsy Gallant version and the modern-day remake by former Miss France (!) Mareva Galanter. At least I assume the French versions came first. Either way, I wonder how this cross-pollinated.